The Cyclone of Fire, Or, the Hinckley Fire

The Cyclone of Fire or The Hinckley Fire A true description of the century‟s most gruesome catastrophe. A sea of fire swallows up in several hours over 500 people. Horrible scenes of death. The fire’s strange caprices Published by Companion Publishing Co. Minneapolis, Minnesota –1894- (Copyrighted, all rights reserved) TRANSLATOR COMMENTS: This translation is made from a copy of the original. Both the original and the photocopy are in the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. It is part of a collection of documents, etc. that were given permanent deposit by the Swedish Historical Society of Chicago upon the self- termination of the same. It is cataloged as *SD 421.A3 in the Society‟s collections. An author is attributed to this booklet by the name of Gudmund Emanuel Åkermark. This name is hand written in on the title page. Whether he is the author or not cannot be determined by me. Where I have changed wording or added words to make this translation more comfortable in the English language, I enclose such in []. Charles John LaVine, Translator The translation is as follows: Introductory overview 1 Saturday the 1st of September 1984 was an indescribable day of horror for the poor settler families (the most Swedes and Norwegians) who had their homes in the southern part of the might belt of woods which stretches approximately forty miles wide on each side of the border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. That day namely a fearsome forest fire (One has with right to have called it the fire cyclone.) struck over/upon these unfortunate neighborhoods, and within the course of six hours of time, about 600 people perished in the most horrible sufferings in this indescribable sea of fire‟s roaring and smoke high gyrations. Now a surface area of 400 square miles lies coal black and deserted, at many places burnt down even to the stone foundations, bearing witness in its immense melancholy about this most heart-rendering episode, which at any time has been inscribed in the United States‟ voluminous annals of misfortunes. It lies hardly within the grasp of possibility, with pen or word [and with objectivity], to describe this horrible misfortune; in addition to those who were part of it, but who were saved from the horrors, this is difficult, for the heart rendering scenes, the public anxiety and the fear of death not the least, paralyzed, so to say, all power to observation. Yet the reader can make for himself a weak presentation about this visitation‟s unbelievable, all-ravaging nature when we state that the stone hard steel rails themselves on the rail line by Mission Creek and Hinckley, here and there under the smelter like heat, loosened from the ties before these had yet been able to catch on fire, bowing with the ends upward and curling themselves up like snakes. Over two dozen cities and market towns, saw mill locations and smaller station villages were sucked up completely or in part by the thunder like, rumbling cyclone of fire, which, driven forward by an unbelievable storm of wind, sent millions of flying tongues of fire whole miles before itself, thus terrible foreshadowing its feared progress in the Duluth direction; and even so not all of the fleeing were able to save themselves. In Duluth, around 70 [miles] from the fire‟s center point, one, already by 4 o‟clock in the afternoon, had become aware of the fateful day‟s dismal premonitory sign about the horrible catastrophe, which just then began to be played out in communities in the woods doomed to destruction in the southwest The whole head of the lake by Duluth and the city itself lay covered in a voluminous black cloud ---- heavy billowing masses of smoke, which only on the horizon was broken through by blood-red flashings. By five o‟clock in the afternoon, the city was enveloped by a completely night-black darkness, and a rain of tight, fire-heated ashes fell the whole afternoon. A terrible consternation/anxiety brooded over the population. On the very nearly, almost unbearable smoke-filled streets, the people groped silently, almost [like] shadows past each other. No one wished to begin a conversation whose seed one completed wished to avoid to taste, and all recognized unmistakably that there outside of the city -- someplace in the immense, tinder dry and brushwood pinewood forests with its many timber camps and numerous industrious cities, there occurred death, the one implacable and severe with the fire and the windstorm as allies, its fearful game with mankind‟s works and mankind‟s lives. It was like Ragnarök1 and the Duluth residents themselves trembled for their fate, not know at what moment they should be struck down by devastation‟s strong arm. 1 In Norse mythology, “the doom of the Gods” or the end of the Cosmos. The better-known equivalent is the “Gotterdammerung” in the Germanic mythology. 2 The forebodings are confirmed. At six o‟clock in the evening, the first information arrived, the first confirmation on the dismal forebodings. It was a telegram from Pokegama2 by the Eastern Minnesota Railroad line, which read, “The train that left Duluth at 1:55 has had an accident; many people dead, other injured. Send help immediately.” A relief train was prepared as soon as it was possible and sent off. It returned on the following morning with 231 passengers, who had been on board the wrecked train. One of the saved from the train, who at noon left Duluth over the Duluth Short Line, has related the following: :”When we had only a little piece further [to go] to Hinckley, approximately a mile, [as] I can [judge], suddenly we observed, in the darkness of the smoke that completely enveloped us as we hurried past, several groups of people, who with waving and calls, tried to get us to stop. The locomotive engineer, who immediately understood the connection, hurried to stop the train and backed up to those waiting. I shall never forget the view, which now met us. Over one hundred refugees from Hinckley, men, women and children of all ages began to board the train, as if they had been [driven] crazy, and under the most shuddering sounds called forth by the fear of death mixed the with the happy feelings over the unanticipated outlook for saving. They fell on their knees and implored the train personnel not to try to push forward any further to Hinckley, and in their visages could be seen the indescribable mental suffering and torments driven to mania‟s border of fear. When all of these fleeing had gotten on board, the locomotive engineer/driver backed the train, as fast as he was able to, northward. This was not a second to [late], for from the direction of Hinckley, we heard a constantly growing noise/thunder, which completely out-shouted the locomotive‟s heavy groaning, and when we had gotten about three miles northward, we suddenly saw that the wave of smoke behind us as well as long, fluttering tongues of fire, split/rendered, cleft and thrown apart, which stretched their forked spears after us. Although we had a good half of a mile jump a head, the thousand-tongued fire dragon gained upon us minute after minute. We understood this by the quickly encompassing heat and the increasing crackling. It we can get up to Skunk Lake, we are saved, some one called out. At the same moment, as if to kill our last hopes, the train was set on fire. The heat itself seems to have set it on fire, for the fire‟s flames were a long stretch behind us. It was a dangerous moment. The compartment windows broke into pieces by the heat and the passenger cars were filled more and more by the hot smoke, so that we, with handkerchiefs before the mouth and nose, must lie prostrate on the car‟s floor. The stuffed seats now began to burn and belch out and one and another, feared to craziness, threw themselves out through the windows A indescribable panic now gripped all and God knows how it [would have gone] with us, if just at that moment the train began to brake and there with awakened us to conciseness, “Skunk Lake! Fly for your lives!” was now called out through the cars, and quicker that can be described, we all threw ourselves out of the burning train and jumped down into the marsh/slough found tight to the train embankment. This was the long 2 Possibly Pokegamon. In “Minnesota Place Names” there was a village incorporated on May 23, 1857, but no location is given and no trace can be found of it. There was later a post office established called Pokegama Falls. Pokegama Falls itself is a falls on the Mississippi in Itasca County. 3 desired saving‟s goal and it became also our saving, although it hung by a hair, for the boundless heat and the dangerous masses of smoke, which immediately after out stepping down into the marsh, began to envelop us, was close to killing many. We rooted/buried ourselves in the mud up to the chin and covered the face and head with the wet mass. In any other way, had certainly no saving been possible, and out of this situation, we were retrieved by Track Supervisor Dave William‟s relief train, which left Duluth on the evening of the day of misfortune” So ran the first report from the place of misfortune, and it was certainly horrible and nerve-shacking. But yet more horrible bad news should be enumerated.

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